Word Games
by AbsolutTequila
Summary: SJ Samcentric. Sam and Jack and the subtle meanings of word games.


This is something a friend of a friend wrote. Her name is Teh Meister. Bow down and buy her chocolate.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Stargate SG-1 and do not benefit from writing this. In fact, I get bupkus. Yes, _bupkus._

Sam Carter had stopped playing games a long time ago. A military official had no right to be playing games, especially not after seeing dead body after dead body litter the ground. When she was a little girl, she loved to play chess, and snakes and ladders, and Trouble.

But she wasn't a little girl.

On the first day, Jack O' Neill came swaggering into the con room, looked Sam straight in the eye, and said, "You're looking quite exorbitant today, Carter."

Sam was dressed in her army grubs, just like yesterday, and the day before yesterday. In fact, today she had accidentally spilt some mustard on her shirt—a putrid yellow color that the green could not disguise—from laughing so hard at Teal'c's imitation of Jack. The droll look on Teal'c's somber face had been priceless. Daniel had even spurt milk out of his nose.

"I—I am, sir?" Clarification. Perhaps Jack got mixed up between words, like the time he said 'CPR' instead of 'RoM.' That had been a fun day, where Jack had somehow managed to get ahold of the computers and downloaded illegal RoM games all the while swearing that since he was high-class military, he wouldn't get in trouble.

Of course, General Hammond hadn't been as delighted as Jack was.

Jack said that the well-meaning general had just been cranky because he hadn't been able to beat Jack's Pac-Man score.

"It means pretty," Jack said, seeing the confused expression on Sam's face. "Well, yeah. I have important stuff to do." He hooked his thumbs into his pockets and ducked out of the room, leaving Sam open-mouthed between twin piles of paperwork.

The second day, Jack suddenly looked up from the conference table, and said, "Y'know, out of our little clique, Sam has got to be the prettiest one."

Sam blinked once. The governmental official, a tweedy man with slicked-back hair and beady eyes, stood awkwardly at the front of the room simply armed in paper. Teal'c didn't move a muscle.

Daniel had a question. "Who's the second prettiest?"

On the third day, Jack clapped his hand on Sam's shoulder in the hallway. It was warm, like a mitt, and Sam immediately paused. She'd give any time of day for her higher-ups, but she had a feeling that today was special.

Jack leaned close to her ear, until his hot breath tickled her earlobe and his chin rested on her shoulder. "You know you shimmer, right? Shimmer like a jewel."

"C-Colonel . . . "

Sam wouldn't admit it, but she enjoyed the small compliments. It made her feel like she was ten again, doing a school play in a leading role for the whole world could see. Except she didn't care about the world; she cared about her family watching her shine.

"Keep up the good work." Jack clapped his hand on her shoulder again, firmly, a punch between buddies, and then turned to go back to whatever the hell he was doing in the first place.

But Sam snapped out of her reverie, spinning around and almost letting loose a flood of papers. She clutched it tightly, a shield from sanity.

"Wait!" she said briskly, drawing up her formidable height.

Jack turned back, mild. He was spring and sunshine again, no hint of the whispered compliment.

"Why-Why are you doing this?" Sam demanded. "Why are you suddenly saying these things?" _Don't tell me. Let me keep my dreams, my happiness, my imagination. _But she didn't play games. She stopped a long time ago.

"It's a long story," Jack said, not looking exactly at Sam. He was talking to her combat boots.

"Start at the beginning."

"Well, on the first day, I think God said 'let there be light.' Then on the second day, He thought light was shittier than He first assumed, and said, 'let there be night.'" Jack was thoughtful, rubbing his square jaw.

She had forgotten. Jack 'O Neill was nothing but games.

"Now that I think about it, God played a fickle man."

On the fourth day, Sam was standing by the beloved coffee-maker, sipping at some freshly brewed, when Jack marched in.

She immediately tensed.

Daniel didn't notice, sitting at the table and browsing through his notes of chicken scratch.

Jack didn't say anything at first, but he wasn't a morning person. He merely grunted at the two of them, and then yanked open the cabinet. Sam knew better than to interfere.

"Coffee, sir?" She offered out a steaming mug.

Jack grabbed it swiftly and swigged it all down at once, his Adam's Apple bobbing up and down frantically until there was nothing but stray grounds at the bottom of the mug. He grunted in appreciation to Sam.

"You know, at least some of coordinates show some appreciation around here. Unlike _other_ people." Jack stared pointedly at Daniel. "Sam here is the only one of the room free of insolence."

Daniel wasn't a particular morning or not-morning person, but you could be assured he wasn't a happy person after staying awake for forty-eight hours. He grunted at Jack, and then took another swig of his own coffee before diving back into chicken scratch.

In the corner of the room, Sam wondered how many more compliments she could take before she actually blushed.

Jack had been staring at her for a few minutes now, and Sam was getting annoyed. Under different circumstances, perhaps she would be more lenient. But she had been stressed out for the last four days, and wasn't all that happy on the fifth.

"Did you want something, Jack?"

"It's an arduous task to keep my eyes away from you," Jack said solemnly. Teal'c did not even have a facial twitch. Daniel choked on his coffee.

"W-what?" A thought struck her. "Do I have something in my teeth?"

"No." Jack leaned forward, his pale eyes intently drilling into Sam. "But you have something of mine."

Sam's mouth turned dry. Her tongue was sandpaper against the roof of her mouth, but she managed to ask, "What?" The corny answer—the cliché answer—

"Ten dollars."

This time, it came naturally. "_What?"_

"You don't remember?" Jack frowned sorrowfully, knocking on Sam's head. "We made a bet. If I could use a vocabulary word every day for five days, I'd get ten dollars from you."

Exorbitant. Clique. Shimmer. Insolent. Arduous. Simple words, but worth a pretty penny. Sam forced a smile on her face.

The man was all games. She should have known better, expected better from her colonel. She smiled again, a bit more forcefully, willing the smile to turn real.

"Ten Washingtons. Ah, Georgy, miboy, we're going to have some fun times," Jack said fondly, putting the dollars into his own wallet like they were children. Then he looked up at Sam.

"I should have known better," she said, referring to both the bet and her emotions. She wondered if she looked sad to the world. Just in case, she added, "Than to bet against Jack O' Neill."

Jack seemed to have read her mind. "But they didn't have to be compliments, you know."

No. They didn't have to be.

"Stop trying to soothe her wounds. None of us thought you would actually do go ahead and do it," Daniel scoffed from his Tired Corner.

"I did it, didn't I?"

While Jack and Daniel bickered, Sam hid a smile beneath her papers. She would suggest them later to join her in a chess game. It'd be fun, the four of them. And perhaps Daniel and Teal'c would grow tired, and then it'd be the two of them.

On the fifth day, Sam left with more than she had arrived with.


End file.
